Anton’s jaw works once. He doesn’t deny it. At least he has sense.
“What are you offering?” Grigori asks.
“Stability,” I say.
“And what do you want?” Pavel asks.
“Your contracts. Your men. Your silence.”
Pavel exhales through his nose. “That is expensive.”
“So is choosing wrong.” I let the silence sit for a moment, then push the folder toward Anton. “You move the warehouse contracts tonight. Not next week. Tonight. Grigori gets two trucks through the eastern route by Friday, untouched. Pavel opens three club accounts through the Cypriot structure Viktor sent you.”
Pavel looks at Viktor, then back at me. “Your father will see that.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And he will understand I’m not asking for scraps anymore.”
For a moment, I see my mother’s hand again. The ring. The same ring sitting outside on Anya Sokolova’s finger.
My father kept it after she died. Locked it away like a trophy. Then somehow Dmitri got it. Of course he did. Dmitri was always allowed to take what he wanted from the house.
Even from the dead.
Heat rises under my ribs, ugly and old. I keep my face still.
Anton studies me with more courage than I expected. “This is not just business for you.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
Viktor’s eyes flick to me, but he says nothing.
No one speaks for a few seconds.
Then Grigori reaches for the pen first. “I’ll move the trucks,” he says.
Anton follows. “The warehouses will be yours by morning.”
Pavel hesitates the longest, but not long enough to insult me. “I’ll open the accounts.”
I nod once.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. An empire takes time, and when I’m done, I’ll make sure I burn my father down with it.
3
ANYA
By the timeI get away from the table, I’m irritated enough to snap at someone.
Katya knocked over half her cocktail onto my dress ten minutes ago, apologizing immediately, but not before dark pink liquid spread across the front of my white skirt.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, pressing napkins against the fabric while the others fussed around me.
It could have been an accident. Probably was.
